Here comes summer

You can see how much greener the grass is. This rainbow
is the lowest rainbow I have ever seen out on the land

 Summer’s here! The caravan is out of the greenhouse, the chickens in the arks are out too, the swallows are back and so are the cuckoos and the weather is forecast to rain! About right then!

Ian out working well into the evening. He is using the
spring tyne to break up the land for rotavating. These
areas are still too wet for the rotavator and so he needs them
to dry out a bit and this should help break it up and take
out any big stones or large chunks of grass.

The days are getting longer and today we were outside working until gone 7pm. I managed to get quite a few different seeds in and vegetable beds mulched up in preparation for the rain. I even lightly mulched the seed beds so they don’t all wash out again. There are still plenty of seeds to go in and some to start off next week, but it has been a good start. I have been potting up tomato plants too. They are only small and certainly not the size of the ones we saw in the Spring Market today that was taking place in our village. There are definitely some advantages to heated greenhouses or lots of windowsill space. Still the ones I have started will be ready in time to go in the greenhouse when the time is right for transplanting. There is not much use in getting them in too early, as a late spate of cold weather can kill the lot, even in the greenhouse.

A funny face from our grandson

Ian had a good time away. He was rather surprised to see our youngest at the airport, he hadn’t been expecting him. Ian picked up a car and found he had been given a very good upgrade. He had booked a small car and instead got a bigger car with bells and whistles, fortunately it was also a diesel and best of all it even had a sat nav. He was so pleased about that, as he doesn’t think he could have found the farm where he was doing the alpaca shearing course without it. Ian and our youngest both went down to our middle child’s place as Ian was staying there overnight, so he could see the newest addition to the family. Lucky person! He also got fish and chips in the evening and had sausage and bacon butties for brunch. A real britfest there.

The newest addition to our family

As promised, some pictures from the conference I was at
last week. This shows the tables set for the dinner - doesn't
it look posh?

Ian also went to see a lady who I got to know via her blog, she makes the most wonderful pieces of artwork, so full of vibrant colour and she spins. Not only does she spin she knows how to spin alpaca wool. It turns out she only lives around the corner from our son and his family and so was an ideal opportunity to meet up. Ian took her some of our alpaca wool and had a quick lesson in how to spin. Apparently he has the right technique and should be able to get the hang of it. Now all he needs is a spinning wheel.

The submarine that we sat near for dinner
at Seaplane Harbour Museum

This caught my friend and I by surprise.
Before we realised what we were doing, we
 found ourselves going up a very steep incline
and then we had to make our way down it.  I think
if we had realised how steep it was going to be
we would have found the alternative route around
the place.

This is the contraption we were climbing. Not quite sure what
it is, apart from a steep bridge that is quite slippy to climb

He then went onto stay with a friend of ours who we also got to know through this blog. She came out to stay with us a few years ago and we had a great time. She lived closer to the place where Ian was taking the course. At one point I asked her if she could pass a message onto Ian via facebook and found out that they had done a LOT of talking. Once you get Ian started, you can’t shut him up (hehe we’re as bad as each other).

Lunchtime for me. Squash, nettles, chilli and peppers

Ian was delighted to get the chance to shear about 5 alpacas. It certainly took him a lot less time than he has taken to do ours, 20 minutes as opposed to two hours. He also found out the best way to secure the animals and so he is now trying to source some pulleys that they normally use on yachts, so he can create a similar set up. He found out how to cut teeth using a special machine, only we can't now find the machine. Their's is about 10 years old and is an attachment that can be used on various machines. It seems that the only gadget is the one that Ian found on the internet and costs hundreds of dollars and yes is American, so would need to be run through a transformer.

The barley has finally sprouted

While Ian was away I asked him what I should do with the alpaca boys as Herkules was up to his usual trick of eating through the fence. Ian said not to worry, he will move the electric fence when he gets back. The next morning I sat down for a cup of coffee whilst watching the alpacas, when I noticed that dear old Herkules had got out. The problem is that he got out in a way that I didn't think he would find his way back in so easily. So I thought I had better encourage him back in. I made the mistake though of not first fastening the other two into the paddock and Herkules was not cooperating, he rather liked the very green grass he was eating. Before I had a chance to react, Turbjørn nipped through the spot which I had opened up to let Herkules back in. He is the most awkward of our alpacas to cooperate. He is very bright and very nervy too and not as easy to con into doing anything. To cap it all Tellus got out as well.

One of the gooseberries we purchased
today from the Spring Market

All three out now meant that herd mentality would kick in and they could just drift off, eating as they go. I tried to encourage them in but realised it wasn't working, they were too interested in the grass they weren't even interested in the grain. I left them to it for a while, no point in spooking them. I went and got some hay to part fill up their feeder and took some to the sheep who also needed moving and so needed the hay to eat. I didn't want them out, that would have been a disaster. Next I played the gently as we go game, making sure they didn't head off in the wrong direction and just gradually manoeuvring them back in. One by one I got them all into the paddock area. Next I decided to move the electric fence so that they wouldn't think of escaping again. By the time I had finished that it was lunchtime and my morning had disappeared.

Red currants. Might not look much now
but hopefully they will grow. We also
bought male and female sea buckthorn,
quince and potatoes for planting.

It wouldn't have been so bad, but I had two deadlines for papers to be submitted by the following day and I had hoped to get them done that day before I went to collect Ian from the airport at night. Amazingly I actually got them both finished and submitted, even though one needed checking over by a colleague and I needed permission from a couple of photographers to use their photographs for the other one. Sometimes things do come together after all. At least it meant that I only had to do some quick checking of one of my student's work the next day, which meant that Ian and I could actually spend time chatting and pottering about on the land. I have enjoyed a whole long holiday weekend doing the gardening, either at our other flat or out on the land. It was wonderful not to have to do too much in the way of thinking beyond digging up weeds and planting seeds.

The result of my work in the orchard plot vegetable garden.
At least half the plot now looks nice and neat. Still have the
bottom half to work on yet.

Ian did get the sheep moved finally. Far, far away - well over the hill really. The grass is definitely good on that side and he doesn't have to listen to their very loud baaing. I am sure they are the loudest sheep ever and very demanding at times. We think that they have helped to improve the grass a lot on that side through their manuring and eating down of some of the weeds. That means we have another area of good hay now. Ian went to check on them on the way home one night. He stopped the car by the side of the road and went towards them, they panicked and jumped the fence and ran up the hill. Ian is not sure if coming from that angle spooked them or if it was the reflective, light, green stripes on his new coat. Anyway he had to get back in the car, go back to the greenhouse where grain is stored and entice them back into their electric fenced areas. Fortunately these days they do follow him when he has food and they were quite content to go back, where they have since stayed.

Help needed!

Oh yes! That's me in shorts and my
Australian hat. I didn't buy the hat in
Australia, I bought it in Colorado. As
for the shorts, they won't be appearing
much for a while, not because we are
expecting cool weather, but the
mosquitoes have decided it is summer too

Well if anyone fancies a week or two doing lots of exercise, we have a few jobs that you can help with. We are well into the busy period now, so many things have been done and still a lot more to do. Once all the seeds are planted, small plants planted up, then it is just weeding ........ continuously until the end of the season. Actually there is usually a bit of a lull before the harvesting starts and then there is quite a bit of time spent preparing vegetables for storage, but that is still to come. This week we saw high temperatures, more akin to summer than late spring, 25C - 30C (77F-86F). It is a bit of a shock after such a long winter and, as I mentioned last week, everything seems to be hurrying along to summer, including the weather. We've had several thunderstorms already, accompanied by our electric going off for up to several hours. Not what we really want when we have eggs in the incubator. At least the storms have brought some needed rain and so the grass is starting to grow quite quickly now - good news for our alpacas. The trees have also continued in their race towards summer, in only approximately two weeks the trees have gone from virtually bare sticks to full leaf, the change has been quite staggering.

How about that for a lawn then! 

It is not just grass that is growing of course, the ground elder and dandelions too. The dandelions look so pretty as they colour up the landscape with swathes of yellow, but not exactly what we want to see when we are trying to improve the grassland. Ian has been doing mega lawn cutting marathon to try and keep the yellow peril down and I have tried making dandelion honey with the flowers, since we don't have any bee honey at the moment. I thought if this works like the internet article said it would then it would be cheaper than buying any. As it turned out, it made a passable syrup anyway, I needed to boil it a bit more obviously, but I haven't really been at home enough to do that. I found the idea for the dandelion honey when I was confronted with a meal that was decorated with dandelion flowers and I wanted to know if they really were edible or just for decoration. I know the leaves and the roots are fine, but wasn't sure about the flowers. Fortunately the cafe I was in had Wifi and I had my computer with me and so I did a quick search before eating.

Herkules had decided to sit down on
the job, so most of the shearing was
done on the floor.

Keeping the grass cut is not just for improving the grassland to get rid of ground elder, dandelions, wild raspberries and nettles but also to keep the fly population down that bother our alpacas so much. This is especially important as we shear them. Some friends of ours came around from the nearby camp to help us today and lend us their shears, so we had some idea of what to do. Mind you, our helper has only sheared one sheep before, but at least he knew more than we did. Between him and Ian they did a pretty good job and Herkules, our first victim... errr volunteer didn't look as bad as some people's first attempts at shearing, judging from the stories. I think we worked quite well as a team (I said we needed help), there was a young guy who is really strong and he made sure Herkules was pinned down and Ian and our friend took turns in the shearing, mainly our friend, but Ian did have a go. He also got his nails clipped while he was down on the ground. I sorted the fleece out into two sorts, the really good fleece and the rest. It should be sorted out into more than that, but I wasn't sure the cutting would be quite good enough this time around to make a second quality cut. It will probably have plenty of other uses, either as a stuffing for toys or duvets or something like that. Herkules isn't our best quality animal and so it will be interesting to see what the fleece is like off our other two animals.

Here what are you doing in there?
And can we come in, it's raining

In preparation for the shearing we had to clean out the alpaca hut. We use the deep bed system, which basically means that hay is continually piled up on top of hay and only cleaned out once a year. It is nowhere near as bad as it sounds as straw or hay is quite absorbent and as long as there is plenty of fresh hay on the top it doesn't smell bad either. It is also more hygienic than you might think. Ian has reduced the poop pile in the middle from time to time so they aren't standing on a mound, but apart from that this is the first time we have cleaned them out properly since they came back in July. It was a job we were dreading, but in the end it wasn't as bad as we had feared and we had got the job done by the end of the morning. Mind you, the alpacas were hovering, partly because they are always very curious about what we are doing and have to stand have a good gawp and because of the heat, they wanted to be in the cool of the shelter. Who said that alpacas like to be outside all the time? They haven't met ours, they go into the shelter if it rains, if it is too sunny and if it is too cold. Sensible creatures really.

Finishing off

Like I said, it is our busy period and so Ian has sown the buckwheat crop, as it doesn't look like we will have a frost in the foreseeable future and I have sown broad beans, lettuce, radish, squashes, more pepper plants, apple, pear, ash tree, plum and some sweetcorn. The tree seeds are just to see what comes, we love to experiment. The sweetcorn I have planted both under cover and out in the open, since the temperatures have risen so much, but I have planted them quite deep. I have risked putting some squashes outside as the forecast is not for particularly cold nights and I have put them under fleece anyway to protect them from the fierce heat. Even our chickens are busy at the moment as they are regularly laying 6 eggs a day between them, we even think our broiler hen, who we have nicknamed big bird as she is even bigger than the cockerel is laying too. I did wonder if she was getting to fat, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Now who's a pretty boy then!

Don't you dare laugh! 

On my journey home on the bus. A small taste of Estonia

As I mentioned last week I was in Tartu for my studies. Monday I did a presentation, that I thought went well and the fact later on in the week I was asked to lecture to some MSc students seemed to confirm that. Unfortunately there was no way I could really go up just for one lecture this week, but  I mentioned that I will not have any problems in the autumn semester and the lecturer who asked me was happy with that. I had a meeting with my supervisors on the Tuesday and finally managed to clarify what I'm doing now, so the study plan should be finished this week, rather late but since I don't seem to be doing anything normally then that is fine. Wednesday, I took THE exam! Statistics! I made some really stupid mistakes on the exam, but fortunately did enough to get through. I also finished the statistics assignment and I'm just waiting to see if that was enough to pass or not. To cap the week for my studies, I managed to book on for a conference in Italy and I booked the flights too. It all seems a bit surreal, one moment I'm planting seeds, helping with sorting wool from alpacas and the next planning to jet of to Italy for a conference.

Another view from the bus. It was a glorious day

I sent off my passport this week to be renewed. It isn't due until December, but this is the time I will be doing least travelling and so needed to do it now. I was rather disgruntled though to find that even though it costs £72.50 in the UK, I have to pay £126 and a courier fee of £19.86. I am not sure why being outside the country should make a difference as it still has to go back to the UK to be processed. I can understand the extra courier fee but not the extra £53.50. I wonder how they manage to justify the extra expense? I kind of understood when it was processed abroad, but not now it is all sent to the UK anyway, it just seems very wrong.

On our way home from the land

I was quite relieved to hear this week that the EU can make sensible proposals if they want to. There was some concern that all seeds, regardless of origin would have to be subject to stringent standards. This could have affected small companies that sells seeds, the local seed swap or the larger seed swap organisations that aim to improve the availability of heritage seeds or open pollinated varieties. I realise that biosecurity is an issue, both from the harm that can happen when doling out diseased seed but also to unwanted additions to DNA. The fact is that it is not often that small swaps of seeds are going to lead to big problems with disease or large escapes of resistant crops, it is big business where that happens most often. In fact is is the small seed swappers who keep heirloom varieties or landrace varieties (plants specific to an area and well adapted to that area) alive, these are the sort of seeds that are dropped by large scale commercial growers. If we lose these small varieties we have an even bigger biosecurity problem because it reduces the gene pool we have access to whenever a disease threatens to wipe out certain types of plants or trees.

More help needed. Can anyone identify these flowers for
us. It is a vine with lemony scented leaves.